I found this quote
“It all comes from being branded with being racist, bigotted right wingers, just for being English.”
in my usual trawl of the rubbish being spouted by those nice people at the CoSG Forum today, and I just have to respond to it. My view is that it has nothing to do with being “English” that they are being “branded with being racist, bigotted right wingers”, but rather that these people are mostly “racist, bigotted right wingers”, and that Nationalism of any sort tends to attract such xenophobic (see here) people.
I was listening to the brother of the Muslim soldier killed in Afghanistan on Channel 4 News last night, and he really spoke in an articulate manner about doing his bit for Britain, that he is British, and how he wishes that the media would stop focussing on the negative aspects, like the recent survey whic reveals that 16% of Muslims supported the 7/7 bombings, and started highlighting the positive like the fact that 84% of Muslims do not support the 7/7 bombings.
I completely agree with what he was saying, by higlighting the negative all we are doing is creating a devisive and divided society, when what we should actually be doing is creating an inclusive and harmonious society. Perhaps our English Nationalist friends could learn something from this; and instead of constantly attacking those who “are not of our kind”, could perhaps begin to think about including them and listening to what they have to say for once. Then maybe the labels racists, hypocrites and bigots might just stop being applied to them.
